And we're back

I looked at my last posting, 'before vacation,' and thought again about what an odd thing time is. On paper - or computer screen, in this case - there is just a half inch between the last blog post and this one - yet so much has gone on in between. We drove another 3,000+ miles, visited with family and friends, saw incredibly diverse sights, got snowed on, got sunburned, and took, literally, thousands of pictures... and here we are again, home, writing a blog post that is only a half inch above the last one. College basketball is over - Arizona didn't win again - and baseball has started - the Mariners aren't winning again either - but it is still winter here and tomorrow we have to go back to work.

Alas.

We had a wonderful trip - with really bad weather on the days we were driving and really good weather on the days we were sightseeing and hiking. In one place the snow was so deep that we were unable to access a trail we'd been hoping to hike, and in another place we dashed from shade to shade with our water bottles at the ready to keep from heat stroke. And we realized, once again, that it is hard for sea-level dwellers to hike at 5-8,000 foot levels. ("That's our excuse and we're sticking to it," is what we say to all you skinny folks who are smirking at this comment, knowing us...)

It's going to take me a while to process all the photos. We took both cameras and we both enjoyed taking pictures, right next to each other. It turns out that Mark's philosophy of photo-shooting is similar to his attitude toward target shooting: point and shoot, and do it a lot. Where one click might do, 3 or 4 are surely better. And having been to 4 national parks (Zion, Bryce, Capital Reef and Arches,) a national monument (Tumacacori,) the Desert Museum, Tombstone and all the 'scenic views' in between, that was a lot of 'shooting.'

There was a lot of people-watching too - something you can't really avoid while out and about to that extent. I'm afraid it is mostly our habit to notice the negative behaviors rather than the positive, but, that aside,we were surprised at the number of times people approached us to ask if we would take their picture in front of the scenery. They invariably offered to return the favor by taking our picture too...

And there we run into a little trouble. We have NO pictures of ourselves, together, on this wonderful vacation. The first time someone offered to take our picture Mark's gut reaction was to say "thanks, but every time someone takes our picture, two fat, old people show up in the developed shot and we are tired of wondering where they came from." We stuck to THAT story too. And now I wish we hadn't.

So. I will post pictures, but none of us. It will take forever for me to sort them out but I'll enjoy every minute of it, and after all, it IS still winter here.

One other non-trip related story I have to share... We got home on Friday night and on Saturday headed off to our local grocery store to load up on milk and produce etc - and when we were done in the checkout line the store manager was lying in wait for us. (Ok, ok, I just wanted to get home to eat the roast chicken we bought, but he was oblivious to that.) It turns out that we are 'Elite' customers at our regular grocery store. As soon as we swiped our 'club card' the manager was alerted that we were checking out, and came running. He shook our hands, explained that our club card allows them to track who their customers are and what they are buying and that he knew we spent enough money in that store every year to pay several of the clerks, discharge the electric bill and fund his new car.. and he just wanted to say 'thanks.' And he knows that we buy everything there (unlike many customers who mostly shop at Costco or look for sales, he says.) How embarrassing. Wasn't he basically acknowledging our perverse willingness to sacrifice good shopping sense for convenience? And since there are only two of us, and we spend more in his store than almost anyone else in town, well, what does THAT say? The more I think about it the more mortified I am! The upshot was that he gave us his cell phone number in case we had any problems or suggestions, gave us a permanent gas discount and week-long access to 'specials' etc. and all sorts of other perks. Chee.

We are finally in the big league. Other people are 'frequent flyers' or 'high rollers' or 'preferred customers.' We are, evidently 'elite' as well. Kings, as it were, at the grocery store. Woe to them the next time they are out of my brand of peanut butter.

Back to picture processing... Here is one of our friends at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum: